Blog of a geek girl who loves to talk about gaming, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Star Trek, Star Wars, Anime, Conventions and whatever else is on her mind

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Just another reason I support BioWare.

Over the past few years video game companies have slowly began to notice that not all of it's consumers are male... Apparently BioWare has made that discovery and attempted to include this fact into their game Dragon Age 2...

Sadly this inclusion of the rest of the gaming community has upset one member who thinks he is the chosen one, the one who was picked to speak for the "straight male gamer".

Apparently this guy played DA2 and was not happy with the idea of one of the male party members flirting with his ever so manly character in the completely optional romance system. Thus he felt he must speak up in order to save the straight male gamers of the world... He alone must carry this ring of knowledge into fiery depths of Mordor... Eh... BioWare forums...

"To summarize, in the case of Dragon Age 2, BioWare neglected their main demographic: The Straight Male Gamer. I don’t think many would argue with the fact that the overwhelming
majority of RPG gamers are indeed straight and male. Sure, there are a
substantial amount of women who play video games, but they’re usually
gamers who play games like The Sims, rather than games like Dragon Age.
That’s not to say there isn’t a significant number of women who play
Dragon Age and that BioWare should forgo the option of playing as a
women altogether, but there should have been much more focus in on
making sure us male gamers were happy. Now immediately I’m sure that some male gamers are going to be like
“YOU DON’T SPEAK FOR ME! I LOVE DRAGON AGE 2!”, but you have to
understand, the Straight Male Gamer, cannot be just lumped into a single
category. Its ridiculous that I even have to use a term like Straight Male Gamer, when in the past I would only have to say fans, …”

Now the reason I have come to love BioWare in the past is due to their games but David Gaider has made me love the company even more. Here is David's response to Mr. straight male gamer...

"The romances in the game are not for “the straight male gamer”. They’re for everyone. We have a lot of fans, many of whom are neither straight nor male, and they deserve no less attention.
We have good numbers, after all, on the number of people who actually
used similar sorts of content in DAO and thus don’t need to resort to
anecdotal evidence to support our idea that their numbers are not
insignificant… and that’s ignoring the idea that they don’t have just as
much right to play the kind of game they wish as anyone else. The
“rights” of anyone with regards to a game are murky at best, but anyone
who takes that stance must apply it equally to both the minority as well
as the majority. The majority has no inherent “right” to get more options than anyone else.

More than that, I would question anyone deciding they speak for “the
straight male gamer” just as much as someone claiming they speak for
“all RPG fans”, “all female fans” or even “all gay fans”. You don’t. If
you wish to express your personal desires, then do so. I have no doubt
that any opinion expressed on these forums is shared by many others, but
since none of them have elected a spokesperson you’re better off not
trying to be one. If your attempt is to convince BioWare developers, I
can tell you that you do in fact make your opinion less convincing by
doing so.

And if there is any doubt why such an opinion might be met with hostility, it has to do with privilege. You can write it off as “political correctness” if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They’re
so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an
imbalance. They don’t see anything wrong with having things set up to
suit them, what’s everyone’s fuss all about? That’s the way it should
be, any everyone else should be used to not getting what they want.

The truth is that making a romance available for both genders is far
less costly than creating an entirely new one. Does it create some
issues of implementation? Sure– but anything you try on this front is
going to have its issues, and inevitably you’ll always leave someone out
in the cold. In this case, are all straight males left out in the cold?
Not at all. There are romances available for them just the same as
anyone else. Not all straight males require that their content be
exclusive, after all, and you can see that even on this thread.

Would I do it again? I don’t know. I doubt I would have Anders make
the first move again– at the time, I thought that requiring all romances
to have Hawke initiate everything was the unrealistic part. Even if
someone decides that this makes everyone “unrealistically” bisexual,
however, or they can’t handle the idea that the character might be
bisexual if they were another PC… I don’t see that as a big concern, to
be honest. Romances are never one-size-fits-all, and even for those who
don’t mind the sexuality issue there’s no guarantee they’ll find a
character they even want to romance. That’s why romances are optional
content. It’s such a personal issue that we’ll never be able to please
everyone. The very best we can do is give everyone a little bit of choice, and that’s what we tried here.

And the person who says that the only way to please them is
to restrict options for others is, if you ask me, the one who deserves
it least. And that’s my opinion, expressed as politely as possible."

I love the fact the BioWare has a guy like David on their team and just want to say thanks to him for putting the "straight male gamer" in his place...

As a "straight female gamer" I feel everyone should be able to enjoy games and BioWare is taking steps towards this goal!